Excerpt:
Supermarkets were accused of ‘airbrushing Christ out of Christmas’ yesterday after it emerged that less than one per cent of cards they stock have religious themes.
Many stores display hundreds of different Christmas cards yet offer just a handful featuring traditional Christian scenes.
Some had no cards at all with religious references in their extensive ranges.
The Daily Mail visited major outlets of the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons – in seven towns and cities.
Out of 5,363 cards sold individually or in multipacks, just 45 featured Christian scenes such as the Nativity – 0.8 per cent.
The worst offender was Morrisons, which had six out of a range of 973 cards, or 0.6 per cent.
Second worst was Tesco, despite chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, a practising Catholic, writing to a customer in October to tell her: ‘We have increased the number of Christmas cards that will be available with a religious theme this year.’
[…]The Mail was contacted by a Tesco customer earlier this week who said her local store in Ely, Cambridgeshire, had just a ‘handful’ of cards with religious themes last year – and still had only three out of 67 last month, despite a personal assurance from Sir Terry.
After she had repeatedly contacted customer services, she received a letter from the company chief.
‘Sir Terry promised more cards this year,’ she said.
‘But the selection of cards with anything relating to the true meaning of Christmas was tiny, so he has not kept his word.’
Tesco said it had doubled the range of religiously themed cards this year but refused to give numbers, saying they ‘vary from store to store’.
An Asda spokesman said: ‘We sell five different Christmas cards that have religious sentiment and traditional designs.’
Morrisons said: ‘We stock types of cards that appeal to our customers.’
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ‘The ranges that appear in our stores reflect what our customers want to buy.’
In case anyone is trying to remember, this is the meaning of Christmas:
This makes me sad. I feel sad for Christians who are being marginalized. We are the only ones who can be mistreated and marginalized with impunity. Christianity is the religion of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, after all. I think I know why people are doing this – because they are more interested in being liked by non-Christians than being liked by Jesus for telling the truth about him. They think that Christianity is about being nice to others first, instead of being nice to Jesus first. Well, I for one do not care what people think about my faith. I can do just fine without any earthly friends. I hope it doesn’t come to that, thought!
I am OK with not being happy and popular. I don’t mind if honor the real message of Christmas doesn’t make me happy and popular.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
See now, this is something the consumer could fix easily. This isn’t persecution. This is supply and demand. Don’t buy the cards that aren’t overtly Christian. That way, all they’re left with at the end are the “baubles and Santa” cards, they’d make less money from card sales, and shop owners would learn. The problem is actually that few of those who call themselves Christians actually care about sending cards that have anything to do with the Christian Christmas. You get what your money votes for…
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This is a great idea. I think that answer to all of these doom-filled stories that I post is for each person to find some way of countering it in their own lives, and not to worry too much about saving the whole world. It;s good to look at the big picture to see the problems, but that can get pretty depressing. A better idea is to get the big depressing picture and then set an example to do the right thing wherever you go. Go to the store and ASK them for the Christmas-y. Whenever I hear Christmas music playing in stores, I always make a point to tell the employees how much I like it. And it’s even better because I am a dark-skinned guy. They probably think that I am Hindu or Muslim or something! LOL. Anyway, good idea, Mary. It’s good to be aware, but it’s also good not to let these things get you down.
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The real problem is that the UK has almost no genuine Christians who want to mention Jesus.
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Living in the UK, I really struggled to find Christian Christmas cards this year. I managed to find one set of Christian cards in Tesco, none in a specific card shop, which despite having hundreds of different Christmas cards, had no religious ones whatsoever. Luckily the charity shops did a little bit better.
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We have made our own Christmas Cards for many years. Gives us a chance to put exactly what message we want, and we find people enjoy the personal touch of a home-made card.
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Good idea, DagoodS!
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I agree with Mary, supply and demand. I think the problem is that most Christians (this is a generalized statement, I know) probably didn’t buy Christian themed Christmas cards to begin with and the stores were losing money; ergo, less and less Christian themed Christmas cards.
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I am not proposing any sort of regulation on business, you two. And I am pretty impressed that you guys were very careful to protect the business from regulation. This was just me wringing my hands in despair at how stores don’t want to offend people, probably because of all the legal problems they have with different special interest groups complaining about publicly-expressed Christianity, (e.g. – gays, atheists/fascists, Muslims).
So my solution would be to abolish laws restricting free speech and strengthen laws allowing religious liberty.
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Wintery Knight,
What “legal problems” are you claiming private stores have from special interest groups specifically regarding Christianity?
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They do it because, at heart, most people are bullies–no sense in over-analyzing it.
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